Social Media and Politics

A moderator of Reddit's The Donald guests to discuss the notorious subreddit community, and the new pro-Trump online forum: TheDonald.win. We discuss the role of memes in these online forums, how memes are used for redpilling, and the steps Reddit has taken to limit the reach of pro-Trump social networks.

Prof. Travis Ridout, Distinguished Professor of Government and Politics at Washington State University, guests to discuss a new study examining American campaigns' political advertising on Facebook and television in the 2018 US midterm elections. We break down some of the key differences between the two media in terms of who is more likely to use Facebook advertising, when and where online ads are most likely to occur, and how the topics and tone of ads across the two media differ. Read the full study here!

Misha Leybovich, Organizer for Warren's Meme Team, guests to discuss how memetic templates can be used for grassroots political campaigning. We break down the plan for Warren's Meme Team, its focus on augmented reality (AR) lenses, and what the response to the initiative has been like so far.Read the full plan here.

Dr. Dan Lane, Assistant Professor of Communication at UC Santa Barbara, guests to discuss his research on how political self-expression influences citizens' perceptions of their political selves as citizens. We also talk about how certain design features of social media seem to affect youth political expression, and how different acts of self-expression can influence political self concepts to varying degrees. Here are the three studies we discussed in the episode: Social Media Expression and the Political Self Civic Laboratories: Youth Political Expression in Anonymous, Ephemeral, Geo-Bounded Social Media Social Media Design for Youth Political Expression: Testing the Roles of Identifiability and Geo-boundedness

Dr. Sebastian Valenzuela, Associate Professor of Communication at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, guests to discuss two studies on how social media impact political participation.The first study demonstrates how both Facebook and Twitter contribute to protest participation, but they do so through different pathways that relate to strong and weak tie social networks.The second study is a meta-analysis of existing research, and it explores whether exposure to cross-cutting information affects political participation. Both studies are published in Political Communication, and you can read them here:1) Ties, Likes, and Tweets: Using Strong and Weak Ties to Explain Differences in Protest Participation Across Facebook and Twitter Use2) A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Cross-Cutting Exposure on Political Participation

Chris Dick, Director of Applied Data Science at Civis Analytics, guests to discuss how data science approaches are being used to increase participation in the 2020 US Census.We talk about some of the political and financial challenges facing the census, what types of data are being used models of hard-to-count communities, and how different types of messaging can either increase or decrease Census response rates.Learn more about the Civis Census Intelligence Center here!

Neal Rothschild, Associate Director of Growth at Axios, guests to discuss the Axios-NewsWhip 2020 Attention Tracker. The attention tracker monitors candidate and issue mentions across Facebook and Twitter, and we talk about how the technology is used in Axios's reporting of the 2020 Democratic Primaries.

Dr. Bente Kalsnes, Associate Professor of Communication at Kristiania University College, guests to discuss her new book "Fake News: Lies, Disinformation, and Propaganda in the Digital Public Sphere." We also break down politicians' social media campaigning in Norway, how this campaigning is changing ahead of the 2019 local elections, and look at some early Norwegian social media sites that predated Facebook

Carpe Donktum, the pseudonym for a citizen who makes memes to support Donald Trump, guests to discuss his work. We talk about some of the memes that the President has retweeted on Twitter, as well as differences in meme making cultures across Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan. Here are the memes discussed in the episode: NPC Infowars Winner State of the Union Biden Meme Acosta Meme And, a link to my paper on political campaigns' use of computer games!

Dr. Leon Derczynski, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the IT University of Copenhagen, guests to discuss how natural language processing and computational linguistics can be applied to social media data. We break down several of Dr. Derczynski's EU-funded research projects, from detecting the informativeness of tweets in crisis communication to assessing the veracity of claims through comment patterns on Twitter and Reddit. Dr. Derczynski also shares his thoughts on machine learning, artificial intelligence, and deepfake detection.

José van Dijck, Distinguished Professor in Media and Society at Utrecht University, guests to discuss her latest book, The Platform Society: Public Values in a Connective World (Oxford University Press).We break down key concepts from the book, including Platform Societies and Platform Power. We discuss the importance of public values in the Platform Society, and how these values might differ across the United States, the European Union, and China.Prof. van Dijck also shares her thoughts on how platforms can be reverse engineered in ways that promote the public good.

Alexandra Ekkelenkamp, Advisor to the Director of Media and Communications at the Council of the European Union, discusses how the EU Council uses social media for strategic communication. Alexandra shares her insights about how social media campaigns reflect the Council's work, how that creates authenticity, and how to incorporate local versus European narratives when communicating to the EU public. Alexandra also shares her work for Donald Tusk's personal social media account, and in particular Instagram. We talk about the differences between institutional and personal communication at the Council, as well as how the two work together.

Loren Merchan and Jonathan Barnes guest to discuss the concept of authenticity and authentic campaigns in US elections. We break down the concept of authenticity, and discuss how digital and social media can be leveraged to make a candidate seem more authentic during a campaign. Find out more about Authentic Campaigns here!

Kata Füge, Social Media Analyst at Bakamo Social, discusses Bakamo's latest study charting citizens' online discussions about immigration across Europe. We break down the main findings of the study, the main narratives used by EU citizens to discuss migration in online spaces, as well as the methodology behind it. Click here to see the study's interactive dashboard, and find out what narratives about migration are popular in your country!

Dino Amenduni, Political Strategist and Partner at Proforma, guests to discuss his work campaigning for Partito Democratico (PD) in Italy. We talk about the role of social media in digital campaigning for Italian politics, the enduring importance of television, and differences between local, national, and European elections.

Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Assistant Professor of European Studies at Lund University, guests to discuss a live breakdown of the EU election results. We talk about the election results, the European Parliament's digital campaign, and what it all means for Europe. Here's the 2019 European Parliament's promo video: Choose your Future. And the 2014 video: Act. React. Impact.

Dr. Ben O'Loughlin, Professor of International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, guests to discuss how diplomats use strategic narratives in managing international relations. We break down the concept of strategic narrative, which includes paying attention to the media environment. Dr. O'Loughlin explains the relationship between narrative and digital media, while providing examples from the 2015 Iran Deal and ongoing discussions around nuclear policy.

Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Professor of Information Studies at Syracuse University, guests to share her research on American presidential campaigns and their digital media use since 1996.We discuss her award-winning book, Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age, as well as its upcoming second edition, which includes a chapter on the 2016 election.Professor Stromer-Galley breaks down how American campaigns' digital strategy has changed over time, how it hasn't, and what these practices reflect about democracy.

Brian Lyle, Vice President of Digital Strategy at On Message, Inc., and AAPC 2019 Digital Strategist of the Year, guests to discuss his Pollie award-winning work during the 2018 US Midterms. We discuss On Message's approach to political campaigning - advertising, organic growth, and fundraising - and the role of digital media in each. We also break down differences in campaigning between challengers and incumbents, discover what makes a good campaign website, and talk about new forms of advertising like OTT and P2P texting.

Mikhail Fedorov, Chief Digital Strategist for Volodymyr Zelensky, joins the podcast to discuss digital campaigning ahead of the 2019 Ukrainian Presidential Elections. We discuss how Zelensky, the election's frontrunner, is using tools like Facebook, YouTube, and Telegram to grow a support base and coordinate volunteers' canvassing efforts. We also talk about bots, trolls, and fake news in Ukraine ahead of the election, and how the Zelensky campaign is working to avoid information pollution on their online channels.Be sure to check out the podcast's Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube channels!

Bill Ottman, Founder and CEO of Minds, discusses how decentralized social media platforms may be the response to privacy concerns surrounding big platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We talk about Minds' peer-to-peer cryptocurrency model, how blockchain technology is used on the platform, and online censorship.

Ray Serrato, Social Media Analyst at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, discusses how social media data is used in the context of human rights violations. Ray breaks down the attacks against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar, and we discuss the role of social media in these attacks. Lastly, we talk about what the closing down of social media APIs means for future human rights work.

Adam Meldrum, Founding and Managing Partner at Ad Victory, guests to discuss the cutting-edge trends in American digital campaigning. We look at some best practices and innovations from the 2018 Midterm Elections around ad buys, booking inventory, OTT campaigns, and Facebook Messenger chatbots. And of course, how social media fits into the modern political campaign apparatus.

Dr. Alice Marwick, Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, guests to discuss the findings of her research report: Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online. Dr. Marwick breaks down how far-right groups use the internet and social media to promote their ideologies. We also talk about radicalization, conspiracy theories, and differences in online activity between the far-right and far-left. Check out the report here. And don't forget to sign up for the Social Media and Politics newsletter!

Dr. Rachel Gibson, Professor of Politics at the University of Manchester, discusses British political parties' digital campaigning from websites to social media. We take a longitudinal dive into the development of digital campaigning in the UK, and compare it to campaigning practices in the US. Then, we examine how citizens' political participation is evolving through their use of digital communication technologies.

Kateryna Kruk, Analyst at StopFake and Special Fellow at the European Values Think-Tank, discusses the development and strategies of Russian disinformation in Ukraine. Kateryna shares her experiences using Twitter to promote awareness about the Euromaidan protests, and we dig deeper into the role social media played in the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution. We then discuss how Russian used digital media to spread disinformation around the annexation of Crimea and armed conflict in Donbass. Kateryna also shares her insights into how to use social media for government communication, based on her work with the Ukrainian Parliament. Other topics include deep fakes and disinformation ahead of the 2019 Ukrainian Presidential elections.

Dr. Homero Gil de Zúñiga, Professor at the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna, guests to discuss the "News Finds Me Perception" and the role of social media in it. Citizens who believe that the news will simply find them are heavy users of social media, and Dr. Gil de Zúñiga's research shows that this negatively impacts political interest and political knowledge. In the episode, we parse out the effects and implications of News Finds Me for democracy. The two articles discussed in the episode are: News Finds Me Perception and Democracy Multi-Platform News Use and Political Participation Across Age Groups

Dr. Paul Reilly, Senior Lecturer in Social Media and Digital Society at the University of Sheffield, shares his research on the role of social media in protests in Northern Ireland. We first discuss the "Irish Border Question" in relation to Brexit, and then hone in on two demonstrations in Northern Ireland. The discussion highlights how much of the contemporary political debates around Facebook and Twitter (e.g., disinformation, propaganda, and user privacy) have roots much earlier than the 2016 US election. The two articles covered in the episode are: Researching protest on Facebook: developing an ethical stance for the study of Northern Irish flag protest pages Tweeting for peace? Twitter and the Ardoyne parade dispute in Belfast, July 2014

Marta Albertini, Digital Strategist at GPLUS, joins the podcast to share her experiences in digital campaigning across private and public sectors. We discuss differences in using social media in a B2B environment versus an institutional one, some of the challenges in running pan-European campaigns, and how generational differences matter when communicating policy online. Marta also shares her insights on what's changed in the (social) media landscape between the 2014 and 2019 European Parliament Elections.

Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Senior Lecturer in European Studies at Lund University, joins host Michael Bossetta for the 3rd Annual Social Media and Politics Year in Review! We each present three "gifts": nuggets of knowledge that look back to the key trends in social media and politics in 2018 or what to expect in 2019. We discuss politicians as influencers, most shared items on social media, artificial intelligence, clickbait, and much more! Here are some extra resources from the episode. Facebook Livestream Platform Year in Reviews: Facebook Twitter Instagram Pornhub Nike "Dream Crazy" Commercial Pizza Hut "Lines" Commercial Alex Stubb v. Manfred Weber Campaign Laurel v. Yanny: Trump Edition Now This video poking fun at Congress

Marco Ricorda, Social Media Manager for the European Parliament's President, joins the podcast to discuss livestreaming from the Parliament during last week's terrorist attack in Strasbourg. From there, we discuss the state of digital campaigning in European politics, the role of data and data analysis for social media campaigns, and the upcoming 2019 European Parliament elections. Check out the EuroPCom Podcast! Here's Marco's Medium post discussed in the episode.

Dr. Jakob Svensson, Associate Professor in Media and Communication at Malmö University, guests to share his research on the logics that drive digital media. We discuss how algorithms and datafication are shaped by developers, and the types of biases that can occur as a result. We also talk about the political implications of artificial intelligence. The two studies referenced in the episode are: Study 1 (2015): The Emergence of Network Media Logic in Political Communication: A Theoretical Approach Study 2 (2018): The End of Media Logics? On Algorithms and Agency

Dr. Dan Mercea, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at City University of London, and Dr. Shawn Walker, Assistant Professor in Social and Behavioral Sciences in the New College at Arizona State University, guests to discuss the current state of social media research in an environment where researcher are "Locked Out" of access to platform APIs. We also talk about how social media is used in protest movements, particularly Dr. Walker's work on Occupy Wall Street and Dr. Mercea's work on transnational serial activists.

Dr. Marco Bastos, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at City University of London, discusses his research on Twitter bots and botnets in the 2016 Brexit Referendum. We talk about how to identify bots on Twitter, what these bots were sharing, and how the content they share on social media relates to the activity of human users. Later in the episode, we discuss the ethics behind researching bots and whether recent automated account crackdowns by Facebook and Twitter will improve political debates on social media. Below are links to the studies we discussed in the episode: Study 1: The Brexit Botnet and User-Generated Hyperpartisan News Study 2: The Public Accountability of Social Platforms: Lessons from a Study on Bots and Trolls in the Brexit Campaign

Naseem Makiya, founder and CEO of Outvote, guests to discuss the peer-to-peer texting technologies available to Democrats ahead of the 2018 Midterm Elections. We break down the features of Outvote and what sets it apart from other P2P platforms. In particular, we focus on the "Swing District" feature, a focus on contacting friends, and the use of emojis to signify a friend's previous voting history. We also talk about the results generated from the platform during the primaries, and the P2P landscape for political campaigning now as well as in the future.

Ruurd Oosterwoud, co-founder of DROG, guests to discuss inoculation techniques against disinformation on social media platforms. Ruurd shares the several initiatives DROG has been working on to educate the public about fake news and disinformation: the Bad News Game, student workshops to increase media literacy about disinformation, and a one day event to create the "biggest Dutch troll army" ahead of the 2019 European Parliament elections.

Dr. Galen Stocking, Computational Social Scientist at Pew Research Center, discusses political polarization and how it relates to social media use. We take a deep dive into how Pew Research Center measures polarization empirically, how polarization has changed over time, and how widening partisan gaps relate to citizens' traditional and social media habits. Dr. Stocking also discusses the role of computational methods in survey research, using one of his recent studies on media sources shared on Twitter during immigration debates as a case. We also talk about Reddit, which has a relatively low user base in the United States compared to other social media platforms. Yet, Dr. Stocking's research has uncovered that Reddit users are highly active in consuming news on the site. Pew Research Center sources cited in the episode: Graphic Illustration of Political Polarization 1994-2017 Political Polarization and Media Habits (2014) Sources Shared on Twitter: A Case Study of Immigration (2018) News Use across Social Media (2018) Dr. Stocking's study on Reddit (2016)

Bruce Schneier, Chief Technology Officer at IBM Resilient, guests to discuss his new book, Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World. We discuss how the Internet of Things opens up new possibilities for catastrophes, how social media companies and governments follow a model of surveillance capitalism, and how the Internet can be made more secure moving forward.

Søren Pedersen, a Danish software developer working for Extra Bladet, joins the podcast to discuss his project uspolads.com. Søren used web scraping technology to build a website that presents data from the Facebook political ad archive ahead of the 2018 US midterm elections. We talk about Søren's motivations in building uspolads, as well as discuss some his previous work using Facebook and Twitter data to reveal insights about politics and tech addiction. You can check out the Facebook Ad Archive here.

Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Senior Lecturer in European Studies at Lund University, guests to discuss the 2018 Swedish Elections and social media's role in the political campaigning leading up to the election. We break down the election results and talk about what it means for Sweden as well as the European Union. Here are the links to the studies discussed in the episode: Moe & Larsson's 2014 study on Swedish politicians' Facebook use Jakob Svensson's study on Swedish campaigning between elections Kragh & Åsberg's study on Russian disinformation via Facebook in Sweden ComProp's study of "junk news" during the Swedish election

Dr. Nick Anstead, Associate Professor in Media and Communications at the LSE, guests to discuss his new research on British parties' Facebook ad targeting during the 2017 election. Using a data from the Chrome browser created by Who Targets Me, Dr. Anstead and his team compare the content, tone, personalization, and calls to action used in these ads. We discuss the findings of that study, as well as outline three challenges for academics studying Facebook ad targeting moving forward: the epistemological, the conceptual, and the systematic. Read the full study here!

Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, joins the podcast to discuss his new book "Anti-Social Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy" (Oxford University Press). We discuss the impact of Facebook, Google, and other tech platforms on politics and society. We also examine the ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, how their technologies are used around the globe, and look ahead to why smart speakers are increasingly becoming the battleground for FANG companies.

Here's the link to Thomas' Medium post on RumbleUp. And while you're surfing web, sign up for the SMandPPodcast Newsletter! Thomas Peters, CEO of uCampaign and RumbleUp, returns to the podcast to discuss his company's new peer-to-peer texting platform: RumbleUp! Thomas shares his insights into how P2P texting (SMS and MMS) can be used by political campaigns to increase GOTV initiatives, polling, and fundraising. We talk about the differences between P2P texting and email, as well as some of the recent success RumbleUp has had in promoting Republican candidates. This includes a recent local primary election in Alabama, as well as drumming up support for Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.

Dr. Deen Freelon, Associate Professor in the School of Media and Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discusses how researchers collect and analyze social media data to study politics. We talk about Facebook's recent API shut-down, the new Social Science One initiative, differences between Python and R programming languages, and one of his recent reports analyzing how minority communities engage with news on Twitter.

Anson Kaye, Partner at GMMB, discusses how a political advertisement for a campaign is crafted from concept to implementation. Anson has designed paid media for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid, and he shares his insights into how the rise of social media platforms has influenced his work. We also look ahead into how the advertising landscape might look like in the 2018 U.S. Congressional midterm elections.

Matt Compton, Director of Advocacy and Engagement at Blue State Digital, discusses how email programs are used for political campaigns and advocacy. Matt also shares his experience in working in digital communications for the Obama White House and the Democratic National Committee. We look ahead to the 2018 U.S. midterm elections and discuss trends in how the Democratic Party is using social media to campaign.

Rameez Tase, Vice President of Audience Development and Insights at Axios, discusses news publishing in a digital environment dominated by Facebook and Google. Rameez outlines the challenges and opportunities of being a digitally native news outlet, how Axios crafts content to fit contemporary news consumption patterns, and how the organization uses native advertising to sustain a business model in a crowded media environment.

Matt Schruers, Vice President of Law and Policy at the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), discusses the work that CCIA does as a link between the tech industry and legislators. The CCIA represents the interests of large tech firms such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Netflix. We chat about the tech industry's position on GDPR, ePrivacy, and other regulations; the role of competition in tech; and how regulation might affect the Internet of Things.

Dr. Arun Vishwanath, Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Buffalo, shares his expertise on how social media are used to conduct cyberattacks. We discuss the three key tactics that state-sponsored actors use to undermine trust in American democracy: spear phishing, trolling, and disinformation. We delve into Dr. Vishwanath's research exploring what factors predict users' likelihood to accept a false friend request on Facebook, what implications these types of attacks have for national security, as well discuss what governments are trying to do to stop them.

Brendan Tobin, Head of Growth at Ecanvasser, discusses how the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will affect political campaigning in the European Union. We talk about what GDPR is, how it will be enforced by legislators, and what the implications of this new regulation are for democracy. Given the multi-level governance structure of the EU, it will take some time to see how GDPR will influence how campaigns engage with companies like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and YouTube. Subscribe to the Social Media and Politics Podcast to keep up to date with all the latest developments in the social media space! Sign up for the Social Media and Politics Newsletter here!